


the bicycle bell

by tigrrmilk



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/F, badly thought out superheroics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:31:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5021227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/pseuds/tigrrmilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t know what to say,” Karen says. “Did you see any good movies recently?”</p><p>“When do I have time for movies,” Claire says. “Besides, they’re all about people beating each other up and dying. I see enough of that every day, thank you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bicycle bell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> warnings for: canon-typical violence, and the discussion of its aftermath

_What if_ , she said to the man, _I never meet a worthy man?_  
 _And what if I really do die in the end?_

\--

**fanny howe, _democracy: chapters in verse_**

 

 

 

 

 

After the death -- after she shoots somebody so that he won’t shoot her, so that she can make all the sick games stop -- Karen finds it hard to sleep. She feels restless. Her skin is too tight for her body. There’s a small swelling on her foot that itches but hurts when she scratches. There’s no relief.

So if you asked her, and if she felt like answering -- she’d say that this was why. She’d say -- I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t sleep because I wanted to make the world a better place, and not a worse one.

What she wouldn't say: _I couldn't sleep, and I didn't know who to turn to_.

 

\--

 

Karen’s first bike had been yellow -- a hand-me-down from a cousin that she’s not sure she ever met -- but after a few months they replaced the rubber handlebars with pink ones. The bell had Minnie Mouse on it, even though she was too old for that. She’d learned to ride on friends’ bikes, and she was good at it. She use to ride around the block in a loop, hair pinned up, arms straight from her shoulders down to the handlebars, back thrown back, always almost standing up on the pedals. But the best part was when she got to the point where she could ride without having to pedal anymore -- she could hear the bike whirl and click as the half-empty world around her slowly turned.

When she first moved to New York, she didn’t have a bike. She took the subway everywhere. She would stand, waiting for the B train or whatever, and her hair would unravel and wave in the wind, and she’d think about that first time that she’d got a finger of it stuck in a bike’s chain -- not a bike that she had been riding, just one that she had been admiring -- and it had been torn out. She’d cried. Not because of losing the hair, but because it hurt.

She buys one a few weeks. A few weeks after -- the shooting. She buys it from a guy on Craigslist who says when she turns up to see it, all the way over in fucking Bushwick, it’s really a guy’s bike, you know, but she’s an inch taller than he is and she needs a bike where her elbows won’t knock into her knees.

“Why are you selling it?” she asks, as she takes a roll of notes out of her purse that she’d taken out from the bank in preparation. The bike is silver and blue. The bell looks like a bullet.

“I’m eloping,” he says. “Selling everything. You interested in some terrible books?”

“Anywhere nice?” she says.

“Florida,” he says. “He really likes Disney World.”

 

\--

 

It’s different. She knew it would be different, but she didn’t really know -- how different. She rides the bike around her block at 3am, then around the next block over, then the next. New York doesn’t get properly dark, and everything is very big, and there are still -- so many people. Cars. Cabs. She finds herself thinking about the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Something about it seems very 1940s to her. Quaint. Something about the way he polices such a small neighbourhood. Something about the name, and the costume. When she thinks about him as a figure, not as somebody who -- saved her. That’s when she can think about him as quaint. It makes it seem less real. She could imagine him being a bogeyman that parents tell their kids about. Or no, that parents tell their kids not to worry about. That’s the way it usually works, right?

She braids her hair before she rides her bike. She wears leggings under her dresses. She had mastered the art of riding with no hands when she was a kid, but she doesn’t try that now -- sometimes she just takes one hand off and brushes loose hairs out of her face, or she wipes condensation -- water from the air -- from her cheeks

 

\--

 

It’s a few weeks after she’s started her bike rides at night that she hears it happening for the first time. Somebody’s being mugged. Before she has time to think, she’s skidded her bike at the corner of the alley, and she’s saying -- “hey!”

In her head all she can think about is the gun. But this guy doesn’t have a gun. He looks clammy and pale. She’s taller than him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she says, doing her best not to stutter on the fuck. It feels alien to her. She’s got one hand still on the handlebar, one hand in her jacket pocket, opening and closing, like maybe she’s getting something out.

The street lamps cast her into strange relief. Karen’s spent a lot of her life being told that she’s beautiful, but she’s seen herself in lighting like this before, and she thinks she looks -- weird. Like you can see the bones beneath her skin. The guy’s still holding onto the purse he’s trying to steal. She lets the bike go -- it falls, loudly -- and she starts to walk towards him. “Give her stuff back and run,” she says. She grabs his arm. It’s like she’s outside of her body. She doesn’t care about her body. She’s scared he’s going to laugh at her, but he doesn’t. It’s all over very quickly. “You’d better hope I don’t catch you!” she yells, as he goes. But she doesn’t want to chase him down.

He’s just a kid.

She says to the girl -- _do you want me to run you home?_ But she runs too, clutching her bag to her chest.

Karen cycles after her for a few blocks -- not too close by, just to check. Just to be sure that she’s safe. And then she has to stop -- she has to make the calculation that if she continues, she'll be making her feel less safe, not more. She cycles back home, slowly, taking weird turns, and she sleeps for a whole three hours. Dreamlessly, like she's dead.

 

\--

 

It’s not like the stories. It’s not like -- Green Arrow, or Superman. She can go for nights -- weeks -- without stumbling across anything. She doesn’t fiddle with cop radios, or stay out all night in all weather. But she has lights on her bike, and a bulky jacket that makes her look more imposing than she is. She flexes her hand in her pocket and she thinks about the gun. She thinks about the nightmares she has about the gun.

She doesn’t even think of what she’s doing as being in the same universe as what the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen -- or do they call him Daredevil now -- does until their paths cross one night. It’s cold, and she’s wearing a big sweater under her jacket. She tried to stop a mugging -- she sticks to the classic when she can -- and she didn’t realise that the small guy had another guy with him, just around the block, and he’s a lot -- bigger.

She’s never wished she had a gun and she still doesn’t wish that she had a gun. But there’s a lot of blood. She thinks she might have a broken nose, and they’re not stopping. Stupid, she thinks. So fucking stupid. And what if -- _they_ probably have a gun. And that’s when it happens. She puts a hand to her face and sees all of the blood, and she looks up, and instead of the two men she was fighting she sees -- him.

“You’re not even wearing a mask,” he says. He sounds like he’s trying to smile. “What is it, amateur hour?”

He’s beaten the guys worse than they beat her. It’s not -- it’s not what she wants to do. But she finds it hard to feel sorry for them. “It hurts?” he says. “It’s broken.”  
  
“It’s dark,” she says, because it is, in this alley, with a broken streetlight and awning jutting out from the side of the building on their right blocking any kind of dim moonlight that could have made it down here. “How can you possibly see that?”  
  
But she says it wetly, and she can taste blood.

“Just a hunch,” he says. He cocks his head up at the building on their left, and says, “huh. You’re in luck."

 

\--

 

“No, no,” Claire says. Her hair is wrapped up around a red pencil, the blunted point facing up towards the sky -- or the grey ceiling -- and she looks exhausted. The chain is still on her door. “I’m not running a clinic for you and your wayward friends.” 

“Claire,” he says, a hand on the wall a few inches from her head. It’s not threatening, but it’s like he wants to touch her gently. “I think her nose is broken and she doesn’t have insurance. Could you just take a look?"

She makes a dismissive noise but she opens the door anyway.

"This is Claire," he says. "She's a friend."

"I'm Karen," Karen says, and Claire says, "yeah, yeah, " and Claire follows her inside.

By the time she turns around to say thanks, he's gone.

 

\--

 

“Please don’t tell me you’re his sidekick,” Claire says. It's the first thing she's said to her other than -- _does it hurt here? Turn your head to the side. No, the other side._

“You’re the nurse from the hospital,” Karen says. She touches the side of her nose and winces. “You patched up my friend once.”

Claire laughs. “I patch him up way more often than I want to.”

“Oh, not him,” Karen says. She’s not sure if Daredevil is still around or if he’s vanished off to beat up more people who are up to no good. “My friend Foggy. At the hospital. But I don’t think you’ll remember.”

Claire smiles at her. “I work long shifts,” she says. “This was meant to be my night off.”

Karen takes the hint. “I’m sure it’s fine now,” she says, but Claire hushes her and takes her hand. She shakes a couple of painkillers into her palm. They’re bright orange. Claire hands her a glass and she swallows them both together.

“I’m going to sleep now, but if you want to take the couch I’ll check on you in the morning,” she says. “Bathroom’s there,” she gestures indistinctly, but it's not a big apartment, and Karen's sure she'll be able to find it.

“Please,” Karen says. “Sleep.”

 

\--

 

Karen would make pancakes for breakfast, but she’s still feeling like shit so she settles for a pot of coffee. Claire’s already awake by the time she’s up, but she’s in the shower, and when she emerges in her clothes, her damp hair twisted at the point where the back of her head turns into her neck, she smiles, widely. 

“You’re a mindreader,” she says. She drinks her coffee black. Karen does, too. She secretly likes adding a lot of milk but she normally doesn’t do it in front of people, and black is fine too. Black coffee seems -- tougher, somehow. More truthful, even if it's a lie for _her_.

“So, tell me,” Claire says. She’s making toast. Her hair is still slowly dribbling water onto the kitchen floor but Karen doesn’t want to say anything. It’s not enough to slip on. “What happened?”

Karen pushes her hair out of her face. She rests an elbow on the counter. She’s tired of lying. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” she says. “Sometimes I ride my bike around my block, a few blocks over.”

“Please tell me you just fell off your bike and he was being a good samaritan,” Claire says. She sighs. She has the blinds still pulled over the window but they don’t keep the light or the heat out, they just make it fuzzy, and Karen can already tell that it’s going to be a really hot, damp day.

“Sometimes I yell at people and tell them to stop what they’re doing,” Karen says. “You know, when they’re -- mugging people. Fighting. When I first moved to New York I couldn’t understand how mean everyone was...”

Claire sighs. There’s a white plastic clock on her wall and it’s very loud. She glances up at it and then presses her hands to her temples, like it's giving her a headache, even though it's her clock, and she is presumably used to it. “I’ve got to go to work,” she says. “Stop yelling at people. You’ll get yourself killed.”

 

\--

 

Karen doesn’t see Claire again for a couple of months. One day she’s riding her bike past the hospital a few hours past dusk -- it’s not like she chose that direction on purpose -- and there Claire is, struggling into her jacket. It had been a hot day, but it’s suddenly turned cold ow that the sun's gone down. 

“Claire!” Karen says, and Claire jumps.

“It’s been a long day,” she says, when she's recovered. Karen's stopped her bike, and has one foot on the pedal, one foot steadying her on the pavement in front of Claire. “And look, here’s my favourite broken nose patient.”

“He lied when he said I didn’t have health insurance,” Karen says before she can think of anything that normal people would say in this situation.

“I figured,” Claire says. They stare at each other for a second.

“Want a ride?” Karen says. It’s a big bike, and there’s totally room for somebody else. If that somebody is Claire, anyway.

“Riding a bike in New York is a good way to get yourself killed,” Claire says, and then she smiles again. That smile. Karen remembers it. “Sounds like fun.”

Claire invites her in for coffee when she drops her off, and although it’s late, it’s not like Karen was really planning on getting much sleep. It’s the weekend, and she has nothing to do. Matt and Foggy are going to one of Foggy’s cousin’s weddings somewhere upstate, and... well. It's not like there's anybody else. 

Claire’s apartment is a mess. Worse than before. There are papers on the couch and dirty clothes on the floor, but Karen just steps over them and takes the mug, gratefully, when offered. “Can you believe I’ve got the weekend off,” Claire says. She takes a deep breath of coffee, eyes closed, and sighs happily. “And I only just worked a twelve-hour shift. They’re spoiling me.”

 

\--

 

Karen sleeps on the sofa again. But then, so does Claire. Coffee can only do so much, and after a couple of hours they both crash, hard, in the middle of watching a recorded episode of Jeopardy. “I know this one,” Claire said, to three answers in a row. “I just can’t remember what it is.”

They wake up curled around each other, sweaty from the heat.

 

\--

 

Karen thinks often about the look on Matt's face -- the way his voice had sounded when he'd said -- _I can't do this alone. I can't - I can't take another step_. 

Matt's voice always sounds so measured -- so... planned. Like he chooses for it to sound like that. If she could choose to sound different she probably would -- she'd like to sound tougher than she does -- but she can't change her voice, it's what she has. In that moment she had felt like -- she felt like, for once, Matt's voice was nothing other than him.

One of the things she likes about Claire is -- Claire seems like she's done with bottling that stuff up. If you're brittle, you break easy. She's scared for Matt, sometimes. Often. He doesn't know how to help himself, how to ask for help. It practically killed him to ask her for it, although she gave it willingly. 

Claire's not brittle, she's just -- strong.

"You're going to get yourself seriously hurt," Claire says one night, after they haven't spoken about it for a while but Karen has a graze on her cheek, darker than she blushes, more red, more bloody, and Claire's saying it because she thinks it's true, and because she cares. Karen wants to cry in her arms, but she doesn't. She thinks -- there are so many people out there, in the dark.

They drink coffee, and Karen goes home, and she stands in her apartment with the lights off, and she thinks -- well, she doesn't think about much except how cold the floor is under her feet, and how she's almost out of toothpaste, and how she can hear an alarm going off somewhere, but it's not in her building, and she's too tired to investigate further.

 

\--

 

It never quite becomes a routine, but -- Karen starts to know Claire’s schedule. When it’s knowable. Claire doesn’t really like bikes, but she doesn’t mind Karen’s. “You know all the dead streets,” she says, and it’s true. Karen likes to ride in the places that remind her of home, and -- well, it’s always dead back home. She can avoid traffic. Claire's got a strong grip -- she wraps her arm around her waist and Karen breathes in, sharply, but she soon adjusts. She finishes every ride gasping, like a goldfish. The physical exertion only has something to do with it.

Karen hasn’t stopped trying to dissuade muggers. They talk about it in fits and starts, now. “Do you ever tell them to go to the police?” Claire asks. 

“I was arrested once,” Karen says, “and then the police tried to kill me in my cell and make it look like I’d hung myself.” She hears her voice saying the words but she didn’t choose to say them. Before Claire can say anything, she says, “I’m sorry, I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

Claire laughs, hollowly. “I hear more stories like that than you know.” Then she takes a deep breath. “I’m so sorry that it happened to you.”

Karen doesn't know what to say to that. "Yeah," she says. She looks up at Claire's ceiling, which is pockmarked with leaks and cracks. "Me too."

 

\--

 

“I fought a guy off with a baseball bat once,” Karen offers. Over coffee again. It’s a Sunday morning at a coffee shop down the street from her apartment, and Claire was attacked by a patient the night before. She’s fine, but she’s got a bruise blossoming beneath her left eye, so she’s wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day in November. "I was wondering if I should start carrying one, but they're heavy to cycle with."

“Wow, this is a terrible change of subject,” Claire says.

“I don’t know what to say,” Karen says. “Did you see any good movies recently?”

“When do I have time for movies,” Claire says. “Besides, they’re all about people beating each other up and dying. I see enough of that every day, thank you.”

 

\--

 

"Don't you have any other friends?" Claire says to Karen, once, while she's handwashing her scrubs to get a disgusting stain out. Karen's doing a crossword by the window. It's daylight, but it's cold, and she's itching for it to get dark. It feels so much like a Sunday that she keeps thinking -- _it is Sunday, right? I haven't just been lulled into a false sense of security_? 

She's spending too much time around Claire, whose schedule is as irregular as -- well. Karen didn't grow up with a rigid timetable, either.

She doesn't like biking during the day.

It is Sunday, and Claire has promised to cook something delicious if Karen hangs around.

"Really it's just Foggy and Matt," Karen says, and sighs, as she tries to rub out a word with the eraser on the end of the pencil but creates a new pink-grey smudge instead. "I never really knew how to make friends. Even at school."

"You didn't go to college," Claire says. It's not a question, although Karen never told her that. It's not really true -- Karen's got a degree, but she went to the local community college, working throughout as a receptionist for a pharmaceutical firm. She didn't live on campus -- it didn't have much of a campus. Her classes were mostly in the evening, in a secluded old building whose surroundings were pitch-black, like the windows had been taped up. Or... well, it always felt to Karen like they were underground. 

She barely recognised people from one class to the next. Or -- they barely recognised her. She had been a lot younger than most of them, and she was always at work...

"How do _you_ make friends, then?" Karen asks. "Did you learn that at college?"

"At college I mostly learned not to become attached to people who are going to die," Claire says. "It's not going well."

Karen feels sick, and flushed.

 

\--

 

Claire visits Karen’s apartment and makes a sad noise, but refuses to say anything about it. “You should see his apartment,” she says, finally. “It’s even bleaker than this.”  
  
“His?” Karen says. 

Claire puts her hands up. “I’ve said before, if he hasn’t told you his name then I can’t help you.”

“Oh, that him,” Karen says. She swallows, as if she needs to make her ears pop.

“Don’t turn into him,” Claire says.

“I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to,” Karen says, but she knows it’s the wrong answer. And it’s a stupid answer. Karen doesn’t want to be a vigilante. She wants to get a good night’s sleep.

 

\--

 

She'd seen him a few nights after their last meeting. "How's the nose?" he'd said. He'd turned up at her apartment. He was wearing red now. The new outfit looked less like pyjamas, more like robocop.

"Still broken," she'd said, and she'd resisted the urge to reach up and touch the bandage. "Claire says it shouldn't be too noticeable."

"Be careful," he'd said. "You shouldn't be out fighting them."

"You can't keep everyone safe," she'd said.

"No," he'd said. "Especially not if I have to keep saving you."

She'd hated it, but she hadn't really known -- what to say. All these people who supposedly wanted to save her, and then -- what? What should she do with herself if she's safe? Sit in her apartment, alone? Buy the Times just for the crosswords?

 

\--

 

“I think you’re a better lawyer than me,” Foggy says to her, after Matt adjourns the meeting, “and you’re _not even a lawyer_.”

From someone else -- from even Matt, maybe -- it’d seem patronising, but from Foggy... and it’s not that he’s a bad lawyer, because he’s great. It’s just...

“Foggy,” Karen says, with the tone of a parent who is tired of repeating the same instructions to their child. “I do not have the money, or the will, for law school. We’ve talked about this.” She can't be annoyed. He sounds so -- genuine. He sounds happy.

“Aw, Karen,” Foggy says. “You know we’d do anything for you. Just say the word and we’ll take evil corporate accounts on to send you back to school.”

“I think that defeats the purpose,” Matt says. His voice is scratchy, and he’s tired, but he’s smiling with both corners of his mouth. “Karen spends her spare time reading about human rights law, women's rights...”

“Hey,” Karen says, but then she smiles too, and blows Foggy a kiss. “Are we done here? I have places to be, people to see...”

“You’re never home for dinner anymore,” Foggy says, in his best mournful tone. “I spend all day at the stove, making you dinner, and then it goes cold and I end up having to eat it all myself.”

"Not _cold dinner_ ,” Karen says, mock-horrified. She’d worn her hair down today, so she pins it in a swirl at the back of her head. She doesn't need a mirror. “I had no idea I was giving you such a hard time, Foggy. Maybe you could invite Matt over to keep you company.”

Matt smirks this time. “Seriously, though,” Foggy says. “I hope you have a nice evening with whoever the lucky _people_ and _places_ might be.”

 

\--

 

Sadly, Matt was closer to the real nature of events than Foggy was, without even trying.

Claire’s brought her paperwork home, and Karen’s helping her out with it while she tries to read some really dense documents about a recent hospital bombing and international law. She's not sure why she's reading it. But they were published for free online, and -- and. It felt important to Karen that she should read them. “Do you want to be a lawyer?” Claire asks.

“I don’t think so,” Karen says. She sighs. “Foggy keeps on about that. But I don’t really know what I want to do.”  
  
“Why did you move to New York?” Claire says. “What was the dream?”  
  
Karen shakes her head. “I didn’t have one. I got a job, and it was in New York. How about you?”  
  
“Born and raised,” Claire says.

“No, I mean. Do you want to be a doctor?”  
  
Claire snorts. “No,” she says. “I’m done with studying. I could do with more living.”

Karen feels hurt, but only a tiny bit. Like a pinprick. Isn't that what they're doing right now. “I just want to help,” Karen says. “Preferably in ways that aren’t just, _Karen, can you unjam the printer please_?”

But Karen's secret is -- she likes her job. She likes Foggy, she likes Matt. She likes how small their office is. She likes that they are -- they really are -- her friends. It's much better than she could have dreamed of when she first moved to New York, and it was like every other unfriendly place she'd ever lived but so much bigger, so much unimaginably bigger.

She doesn't want to be a lawyer. She doesn't want to be taken away from it. Every time they go through a fallow period she just thinks -- please, god. Don't let the money run out.

“I watched this film once, a few years ago,” Claire says, “set in New York -- well, a different kind of New York -- and there was this gang of girls who used to ride around the city on their bikes and when they saw a man harassing, attacking a woman... they’d descend.”

Karen laughs, surprised.

“I think of it when you talk about what you’ve been up to, sometimes,” Claire says.

“I thought you hated what I do,” Karen says. There was definitely admiration in Claire’s voice. Claire rubs at her eyes with her hand.

“There's a whole gang of them, and there’s one of you,” she says.

“It helps me sleep,” Karen says. It’s not a lie but it’s not really true, either. She never told Claire about the gun, but Claire knows enough. She knows enough to know about the bad dreams, about the lying awake in bed five nights in a row, seeing spots and catherine wheels on the ceiling. "Besides, it's just a film. I'm real."

Karen stays over again that night. She’s unplaiting her hair in the kitchen, fingers working automatically, when she hits a snag. A knot. She can’t see it. “Claire,” she says.

Claire helps her untangle the knot. She doesn’t pull out any of Karen’s hair. Karen’s hair is coarser than it looks, burnished, long. It’s always been her favourite part of her, and she’s always liked that it isn’t too soft. It has real presence, real feeling. “Fuck, you really do have amazing hair,” Claire says. “Every time you stay over I spend the next few days pulling your hairs off the cushions, like you’re a shedding cat.”

“Sorry,” Karen says, but she’s not. Claire hasn’t stopped touching her hair. She starts to rub Karen’s head, gently, just beneath where the plait had gathered, just in the place that still feels -- knotted.

“Don’t be,” Claire says.

“I’m not,” Karen says.

Claire breathes, and then says. “You need to promise me that you’re not going to get yourself killed.”

“You could get a bike too,” Karen says, and she’s about to propose a name for their bike gang when Claire turns her head slightly to the side, hands still rubbing her head, hands still there, and kisses her. It’s a slightly off-centre kiss -- the middle of Claire’s mouth on the side of Karen’s, but before Claire can pull away, Karen’s knotting her fingers into Claire’s hair, and kissing her back with the side of her mouth, and then the whole of her mouth.

 

\--

 

"You could be a campaigner," Claire says. Karen's tying her boots for her while she finishes her coffee. It's a Saturday morning -- too early, too much of a morning, not enough of a Saturday -- but Claire has work, because it's not like people decide to take a break from getting hurt at the weekend.

Karen bites at her thumbnail, but not hard enough to break through, and then she ties Claire's bow into a stronger bow that won't be so easily broken.

"Just think about it," Claire says. "What's it all  _for_?"

Karen shrugs, but she pulls Claire in for a kiss -- another kiss, and another one, and Claire has to drag herself away to go to work, and Karen feels like her whole body is lit up, and she goes back to bed and she dreams of nothing except maybe Claire -- just a few glimpses, a few strands of soft, dark hair, and a smile that starts at one side of her mouth that spreads through her whole body.

 

\--

 

"When are we forming that gang," Karen says, as she changes the dressing on a bad cut Claire got from work that she doesn't want to tell her about.

"Ask me again in a month," Claire says, and she sounds so tired, but when Karen looks up, she's smiling.

 

\--

 

Karen leaves it for longer than a month. It all feels so fragile -- until. Until. At some point it doesn't.

She thinks again about Matt saying to her that he couldn't take another step -- alone. She wonders if she reached that point so long ago that she just -- didn't realise she'd stepped over it. That she'd just kept walking, even though her feet were hurting.

Claire says things to her like -- are you cold? Do you want to finish this up or should I put it in the fridge? Just -- so many small things that make her feel -- she wouldn't know how to describe it, so she doesn't. Foggy asks if she's happy, and Matt smiles, although he still -- he still looks sad, but then he always did. 

 

\--

 

  
“I’m not getting a bike,” Claire says, slightly out of breath, from where she’s sprawled on top of Karen on her couch, held up by one elbow that’s just half an inch away from Karen’s shoulder.

"We'd be so good at it," Karen says. She didn't think Claire was ever going to get a bike. She brushes a small lock of hair out of Claire's eyes. "We could ring our bells in unison. Annoy the shit out of everyone until they all leave town."

"I like riding with you," Claire says, doing her best to ignore her and continue to be sincere. "You're so warm."

"But," Karen says, and snorts, softly. She kisses the side of Claire's jaw, and then the other side, pushing herself up from the couch to reach.

"Justice can fall on somebody else's shoulders when I'm off the clock," Claire says. "I have other things to do with my time."

Karen bites her lip. "Besides," Claire says. "Look. You're spending tonight with me."

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the film referenced is _born in flames_


End file.
